1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to fishing reels and, more particularly, to a reel of the type having a reciprocating/oscillating spool which causes even disposition of line around the spool during retrieval.
2. Background Art
It is conventional to construct spinning reels with a rotor that is operable to wind line around a spool and to concurrently reciprocate/oscillate the spool so that line is drawn evenly over the axial extent of the rotor during retrieval.
One objective of spinning reel designers is to maximize casting distance. It has been found that casting distance is increased by lengthening the stroke of the reciprocating/oscillating spool. Heretofore, this stroke lengthening structure has been fairly expensive and generally an option only on top of the line fishing reels. This high cost is generally attributable, at least in part, to the delicate and time consuming assembly steps required to produce reels with such structures incorporated. Further, the structure to lengthen the stroke has generally accounted for an undesirable increase in the overall size of the reel.
Examples of known, prior art fishing reels, in which the above problems exist, are as follows: U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,613,468 (Hand); 3,224,703 (Clark); 3,946,963 (Oberg); 4,114,825 (Murvall); 4,196,869 (Shepherd); and 4,784,347 (Kobayashi et al).
Another problem with conventional spinning style reels is that the line tends to bury itself as it is retrieved, which causes binding as the line is paid out, as during a cast. This burying results from the fact that the spool shifts axially slowly and at a constant speed with respect to the rotor in both directions of travel so that the rise angle for the spiral of line is relatively small. In other words, the coils of line tend to wrap closely next to each other as the spool moves in each direction. The result of this is that the overlying turns align with and tend to be guided into the gap between adjacent underlying turns, causing the line to "bury" itself.
A still further problem with prior art spinning reels is that there tends to be a significant amount of force exerted by the reciprocating/oscillating structure other than in an axial direction on the center shaft. These non-aligned forces must be overcome by the operator and this requires additional torque to be applied by the operator on the crank handle.